


Help.

by mercurialMalcontent



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 21:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3666249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurialMalcontent/pseuds/mercurialMalcontent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Cole met Anders. (Implied to be set after the events of Inquisition, but no spoilers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Help.

_Torn, twisted. "It had to be done," but every night in your dreams you hear the screams, the sneers, the sarcasm of the ones that you tried to help. Hawke's face fallen, disbelief and betrayal fighting with disgust, refusing to give you justice. Refusing you release._

Anders starts and jerks his head up. A man - a boy - crouches on the far side of the fire, light flickering eerily over his too-thin frame. He doesn't look up at Anders' movement, an enormous floppy hat still shielding his face.

_"That isn't justice," Hawke told you. "Justice is seeing this through, making things right again." You know they're right and you hate it, you want to burn the whole world down for being broken and make them start again._

Anders shifts, reaching for his staff as subtly as he can, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. "Who are you?"

_You give, you take away, you try to bring balance to the scales of the world but they're always tipping, swinging, out of control. This isn't justice. You don't know yourself anymore. Who are_ you _?_

The boy looks up, a ghost's face peering at Anders through lank, pale hair, and something in Anders shifts. He opens his mouth to ask again, demand the boy's identity, but what comes out is the echoing, crackling anger of his other self. " **You are a DEMON.** "

The boy matches Anders' gaze, unwavering. _No. I'm Cole, and I want to help._

Anders falters and so does the thing inside him that's coiled around his spine and tangled up in his nerves. He feels it, a touch of the Fade, and that part of him that always burns with outrage shifts, for a brief moment, to yearning. Then it snaps back and Anders shouts, "No! **You would change me--** "

_You are already changed._ The boy - demon - whatever he is lowers his eyes. _Tangled in yourself, lost your way, lost your purpose, lost your love, lost yourself, but unable to stop, if Hawke wouldn't give you peace, then you can't have any at all._ He raises his eyes to meet Anders' again. His face is... not blank, but steadfast, intent, his eyes looking _past_ Anders' and seeing into him, all of him. _You're so scared. Both of you._

The coiled tight parts of Anders, parts that are both of him, Justice's anger long since made inseparable from his own, want to lash out at this creature, drive him away, destroy him. Those parts demand that he grab his staff, explode the fire, turn the ground underneath the creature into rubble. But the rest of what he is feels the compassion in the boy's voice. It's cool cloth quenching his fevered anger, kind arms around his fright. He _aches_ for it, and shudders from it.

One of the boy's pale hands twitches, as if about to reach out. _Please, let me help._

"Then help me," Anders says in a choked voice that is only his own. "Please."


End file.
